Four Pancake Variations for the Guardian Service Fryer

We’ve cooked up plenty of Guardian Service “Greaseless” Griddle Cakes for friends and family, but lately we’ve been serving these easy–breezy dishes with intimidating Teutonic names: Pannekoeken, Apfelpfannküchen, Salzburger Nockerln and Kaiserschmarrn.

Don’t let their names and many aliases confuse you: “Dutch Pancake,” “Dutch Baby,” “German Apple Pancake,” “David Eyre’s Pancake”… They're one–pan pancakes, quick and folky yet elegant dishes, all similar in preparation, infinitely versatile and equally suitable for breakfast or dessert. You might even adapt them as a savory for a brunch or luncheon.

We’ve adapted these recipes, traditionally cooked in an iron skillet, for the 10” Guardian Service fryer, which serves 3-4, though you could half again the recipe and prepare it in the 12” fryer for 6-8.

Each recipe starts with a pan of bubbling butter in which the batter is briefly fried before finishing in a high oven to bake into a golden puff, or in the case of the Kaiserschmarrn, scrambled into golden dumplings.

Begin with a basic Pannekoek (or “David Eyre’s Pancake,” as Craig Claiborne dubbed it in an enduringly popular 1966 article for the NY Times). Add apples, and a bit more flour and milk, and you have a traditional Apfelpfannküchen or a German Apple Pancake. Without the apples but with beaten egg whites folded in it becomes Kaiserschmarrn (roughly translated “Emporer’s Hash”). Minus the flour, you have the sweet Austrian soufflé “Salzburger Nockerln,” or Salzburg dumplings.

Pannekoek

or "David Eyre's Pancake"

Simple yet showy, the original one-pan pancake. Get everyone to the table before you remove this from the oven!

(Note that if you replace the nutmeg with a pinch of salt or some herbs and cooked this batter in a cold buttered skillet for twice as long, it would become a Yorkshire Pudding (or poured in muffin tins or ramekins: popovers). Our Guardian Service Gougères, has more flour and cheese and comes closer still to an eggy bread).

3 large eggs

¾ cup flour

¾ cup milk

fresh grated nutmeg

4 Tbsp. butter

2 Tbsp. powdered sugar

Juice of half a lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. In a mixing bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Add the flour, milk and nutmeg and lightly beat until blended but still slightly lumpy.

2. Melt the butter in the 10” Guardian Service fryer over medium heat. When very hot but not brown, pour in the batter.

3. Transfer pan to oven and bake until the pancake puffs and turns golden brown at the edges, about 15–20 minutes.

4. Working quickly, remove the pan from the oven and, using a fine-meshed sieve, sprinkle with the sugar. Sprinkle with lemon juice and serve immediately with warm preserves. Serves 2 to 4.

Apfelpfannküchen

or German Apple Pancake

Like the Pannekoek above, but with apples

2 large eggs

1 cup flour

1 cup milk

1/4 tsp. salt

Pinch of ground cinnamon or nutmeg

4 Tbsp. melted butter

2-3 small apples

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp. powdered sugar

Juice of half a lemon or orange

1. Preheat the oven to 500°F. In a mixing bowl, lightly beat the eggs and milk. Add the flour and salt and lightly beat until just blended. Let rest for 10-15 minutes.

2. While batter is resting, melt the butter in the Guardian Service fryer over medium-high heat. When very hot but not brown, add the apples. Cover and reduce heat, simmering until the apples begin to sweat.

3. Sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon over apples and pour the batter over all. Place uncovered fryer in oven, reduce heat to 425℉ and bake until the pancake billows at the edges and turns golden brown, about 15 minutes.

4. Working quickly, remove the pan from the oven, carefully invert pan onto serving plate, and sprinkle pancake with lemon or orange juice and sifted confectioners' sugar. Serve immediately. Serves 2 to 4.

Salzburg Nockerln

Essentially a sweet soufflé, fried then baked

Andrew notes: “One of my fondest memories is of wolfing down mouthsful of crusty, oozy, sweet Norckerln on a romantic date in Salzburg, many years ago, with the beautiful and brilliant young Joanna Schneiderman.  We took the funicular up the cliff at twilight to sup at the Café Winkler and washed the fabulous dessert down with kaffee mit schlag. Joanna went on to marry my best friend, Ken Albala, who incidentally is the world’s leading authority on pancakes. Worlds of love and memory collide in the crack of a few eggs.”

5 eggs, separated

2 Tbsp. Flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

zest of 1 lemon

pinch salt

1 Tbsp. butter

2 Tbsp. powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Separate the eggs and lightly beat the yolks with the flour and lemon zest.

2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, gradually adding a pinch of salt and the sugar.

3. Fold egg yolk mixture into beaten whites.

4. Heat butter in 10" Guardian Service fryer until bubbling and spoon the batter into fryer. (Traditionally this is done in three distinct mounds to represent the three mountains of Salzburg—mine sometimes resemble the lava flows of Haleakala, but they still cook to perfection in the GS fryer).
5. Place the fryer in the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Serve with stewed or fresh fruit and a light dusting of powdered sugar.

Kaiserschmarrn

Fluffy, pan–fried scrambled dumplings

¼ cup raisins

1 Tbsp rum (or bourbon, etc)

3 Tbsp. butter

4 eggs, separated

3 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 cup flour

1 ½ cups milk

2 Tbsp powdered sugar

pinch salt

Raspberry Sauce

1. In 10” Guardian Service fryer, simmer raisins with 2 Tbsp of water and/or rum, bourbon, etc.

2. Separate eggs. Beat yolks with sugar and vanilla until golden, gradually add milk and flour, alternating until mixed into a smooth batter.

3. Beat egg whites until stiff, adding a pinch of salt. Meanwhile, add butter to fryer, lightly sauté raisins.

4. Fold egg whites into batter and pour over butter and raisins.

5. When the edges of the batter begin to brown, gently cut through the batter with a spatula and fold over in the pan, scrambling the batter while browning the resulting dumplings on all sides.

6. Serve immediately with powdered sugar, drizzled with warm raspberry sauce.

Guardian Service Basics: Beans

For regular readers of the Guardian Service Ware Blog, an apology for my sabbatical. I've been working a new job (yay!) which requires some driving (boo!) and I've had a little less time to both cook and write about it. I've also witnessed my eating habits change as a result. Late and large meals are ever the pitfall of my profession: you don't want to eat a lot before a show and after the curtain comes down (and a commute) you're both wired and tired and ravenous for a hot meal at 12:30 in the morning... and the fast food option rears its ugly head.

To combat the temptation, I've been trying to cook foods that will feed us over several days and improve as leftovers, like beans.

Beans. If the word conjures cans of syrupy mush or inedible pellets, we invite you to rediscover this nourishing, flavorful, economical and varied food, perfectly suited to Guardian Service Cookware.

Back in December, 2008 we had the good fortune to attend a talk at the LA Public Library hosted by the Culinary Historians of Southern California and featuring Ken Albala, Professor of History at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California and Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo Beans in Napa, CA. Both spoke about this humblest of staples in almost lyrical ways. We've incorporated more beans in our diet ever since.

In his recent book, "Beans: A History," Albala explores the "social, ethnic and nationalistic associations" of beans as well as the "philosophical and religious reasons why people have eschewed or embraced the lowly bean." His blog chronicles his latest food adventures—check it out.

Sando raises heirloom varieties of beans he has sought out in local communities throughout Mexico and Central America and their flavors and textures are as varied and nuanced as is their array of patterns and colors. He explained part of the mystery of rock hard beans, even those which have soaked overnight: your average supermarket navy beans may well have sat in a warehouse for a very long time before they reach your pot.

Cooking Beans with Guardian Service

The cooking time of dried legumes varies depending not only on their age, as mentioned above, but upon where they were grown and the kind of water in which they're cooked, which can make cooking them frustrating. Buying fresher beans from a consistent source can take away some of the guess work, but ultimately you'll need to patient and watchful. Fortunately, the consistent heat produced by the Guardian Service Cookware not only reduces the overall cooking time, but helps cook the beans uniformly.

1) In a large bowl*, soak overnight dried navy, lima, kidney or other dry beans in 3 times as much water as beans, removing any beans that float to the surface. Some cooks recommend changing the bean water at least once during the soaking—it removes some of the oligosaccharides which cause flatulence. I side with Irma Rombauer and Adelle Davis who both recommend cooking dry beans in the water in which they were soaked: vitamins and minerals are also passing into the soaking water and are lost with each water change.

*Don't soak beans in the Guardian Service Ware pan. While cooking with aluminum is safe, soaking for long periods can draw more metal into the food and possibly temporarily discolor your pan.

2) Transfer beans and water to Guardian Service Ware pan (the Casserole/Tureen unit works well or one of the dome cookers; if possible, select a unit with a glass lid, as it's easier to see that the beans remain on a steady simmmer). Slowly bring beans to a boil in the water in which they were soaked and maintain at a simmer over a low heat for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. Optional: Add a bay leaf or two.

3) When the beans become tender and are nearly done, add salt, pepper, fats or additional seasonings. (Don't add these before the beans are cooked or the ingredients will lose their potency and may lengthen the beans' cooking time). Remove a few with a spoon and blow on them. If the skins peel away, the beans are cooked.

We cooked some Rancho Gordo Vaquero Beans mixed with some navy beans, then tossed them with olive oil, fresh herbs, minced shallots and sea salt. There are endless variations, though beans always pair well with tomatoes, onions, meat, cheese... "Dried peas and beans, being rather on the dull side," Rombauer writes in The Joy of Cooking, "respond readily—like a good many dull people—to the right contacts."

Thanks again for checking back, loyal readers. To make up for our absence, for our next blog we're planning something special: the week before Thanksgiving, we'll dig out the large size Guardian Service Roaster and roast up our first Guardian Service turkey!